Excel® 2007 Charts

Chapter 10. Mathematical and Statistical Charting Techniques

In This Chapter

• Drawing circles with a scatter chart

• Connecting data points to the chart axes or the origin

• Creating frequency distributions and histograms

• Plotting a normal curve

• Calculating the area under a curve

• Creating a box plot

• Plotting 1– and 2–variable mathematical functions

• Simulating a 3–D scatter plot

This chapter describes some charting techniques that may be useful for those who are mathematically or statistically inclined. The charts in this chapter use techniques that might not be obvious.

Drawing a Circle with an XY Series

This section describes how to create a scatter chart that displays a perfect circle. To do so, you need two ranges, one for the x values and another for the y values. The number of data points in the series determines the smoothness of the circle.

The example in Figure 10-1 uses 13 points to create a circle with an origin of 0, 0 and a radius of 1. This series uses the Smoothed Line option (on the Marker Line Style tab of the Format Data Series dialog box). When this option is not set, the circle is not very smooth, and its component lines are clearly visible.

Figure 10-1. This scatter chart uses 13 data points to define a circle.

Note

The examples in this section (plus a few additional examples) are available on the companion CD–ROM. The filename is scatter chart circles.xlsx.

To draw a circle on a chart, ...